LDS church plans to build eco-friendly facility

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is planning to build an eco-friendly house of worship in east Mesa that could be the first church in the state to win a silver certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

The worship house is part of a churchwide pilot program that includes five churches being built in Utah, Nevada and Arizona that are expected to become LEED-certified facilities.

In east Mesa, the new church is also a response to a growth in membership, said Jared Doxey, director of architecture, engineering and construction for the church.

"The churches around here are over capacity, and that's why we need to build this," said Doxey, adding that the future meetinghouse will serve three 500-member congregations, also called wards.

"We've got a heavy concentration in this area right here," said Doxey, who recently visited the 5-acre parcel at the northeastern corner of Crismon and Brown roads where the 19,400-square-foot meetinghouse will be built.

"Our membership in this Valley has been a constant number since our fore-founders settled here," he said, adding that building with the environment in mind has always been a part of the way the church has built facilities. Now, he said, the church is looking for new ways to demonstrate that.

The Mesa facility will save 20 percent in utility costs compared with the current church designs. It will use a solar photovoltaic system for its energy, and it will use water-conservation systems as well, with irrigation, low-water-use landscaping and low-flow toilets.

Doxey said exterior photocells will turn lights off automatically. Motion sensors will turn off all interior lights when a space is not in use. There will also be preferred parking stalls for high-efficiency vehicles and bike racks.

A member-awareness training program will be implemented to teach energy conservation.

Building a new church also brings jobs.

"We will hire 30 subcontractors to build this prototype project, which will create or sustain 250 jobs during the nine-month construction timeline," Doxey wrote in an e-mail.

Gilbert-based Porter Brothers, a family business, has been hired to build the church.

Already, the church has red strings around desert saguaros that will be preserved during construction and will eventually become a part of the church's landscaping.

Doxey said the church will evaluate the building and maintenance costs for each of the five expected LEED-certified churches planned in this region to consider for future buildings.

"Not only are we doing things that are environmentally friendly . . . we're reducing cost," he said.